A question I often hear in session is, "At what point does worry and stress become unhealthy?" It's an interesting question, because it suggests that some worry and stress is healthy. I think that's true. If we never worried about anything, we might not care as much about our health, our families, or making progress in life. Within limits, anxiety is a useful emotion — it serves us!
What healthy worry looks like
Healthy worry tends to lead to useful action.
Say your child is out past curfew. A little worry is useful here: it might prompt you to call, make sure they're safe, and ask them to come home.
Or say you're lying in bed with your eyes closed, and you suddenly think, "Did I forget to set my alarm?" Part of you thinks you set it without noticing; part of you isn't sure. You get up to check, and it wasn't set. Good thing you worried enough to look.
In short, healthy worry leads to useful action.
What unhealthy worry looks like
Unhealthy worry, not surprisingly, is worry that doesn't lead to useful action. It either leads to actions that hurt you in some way, or it doesn't lead to any action at all.
Some examples are obvious: worrying about an asteroid hitting the earth, or about nuclear war. Most of us have close to zero influence over these things, so worrying about them doesn't help.
There's a less obvious kind, too: worry about things you can influence a little, but can't control. Usually this means other people's behavior. Your adult child isn't eating as healthily as you'd like. Your spouse is doing things that hurt their mental health. Something is happening in your neighborhood that you think will lower home values.
The tricky part is that you may have some influence in these situations, but it's limited. And the stress you cause yourself can end up bigger than the difference you're able to make. It's worse still when you worry about something but don't do anything about it. Then, even if you could have an impact, you're not having one.
In short, unhealthy worry leads to actions that don't work or that cause harm — or it leads to putting things off.
A quick test: is this worry leading me to do something useful? If yes, it's probably healthy worry. If not, it may be worry you can let come and go.
When healthy worry tips over
Even healthy worry can become unhealthy when there's too much of it. When deciding whether someone has an anxiety disorder, one of the most important questions is whether the worry causes significant distress or gets in the way of their life. So if "healthy" worry is really stressing you out or limiting you, it has crossed over. You might be worrying so much that it's hard to go to work, or putting things off more than usual because you feel overwhelmed.
These are general guidelines to help you look at your own worries. The next question is usually: what do I do if my worry is unhealthy, but I can't seem to stop? I answer that in What to Do When You Can't Stop Worrying.
